I heard someone say once that if you want to know how to be a pastor, you need to read Hannah Coulter. It's an odd thing to say because the book really has nothing to do with pastoring, but it does have a lot to do with people -- not real people, since this is a work of fiction, but people in the imagination of Wendell Berry, who has an extraordinary gift for observing for us the deep workings of the human heart with all of its hopes, dreams, pleasures, disappointments and sufferings.
Hannah Coulter is one of several Berry books that are written from the different perspectives of different residents of the fictional Port William, Kentucky. These are hard-working people of the land who stick close to one another, trust one another, eat meals together, go to church together, and try to maintain an old way of life that resists the pressures of modernity. They are people who "aren't going any place, (and) aren't getting ready to become anything but what they are." (152). They are, humanly speaking, good people living ordinary lives in an increasingly extraordinary way as their old way of life slowly disappears.
There is not a lot of drama in the plot here, just a woman reflecting on the ups and downs of her life, like a fictional autobiography, all through the lens of a melancholy hopefulness, like a Sigur Ros song, beautifully written, full of insight and gratitude, sometimes funny, and worthy of emulation.
Every now and then, Hannah offers some straightforward advice, borne out of her own struggle and sorrow. This is a wise old and godly woman who has learned a lot about life and how to live it. "You mustn't wish for another life. You mustn't want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: 'Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.' I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions." (113)